Chapter 9
The word “nothing” left much to be desired when it came to describing the terrible gulf within the moon. In her travels, Cloud Buster had believed she had come to witness everything the universe had to offer. When she came to on the other side, when her senses returned to her, this certainty abandoned her.
Reflecting back, Cloud Buster found that she could only glimpse the barest portion of it. There was no color that could be ascribed to it—not black, not white, not anything in between. It possessed neither sound nor smell nor sensation. A thought that was no thought. She shuddered and withdrew from it—somehow, she suspected she would carry that piece of the void with her forever.
“And to think,” she muttered, “the Entele-whatsits have to go through that all the time.” Cloud Buster shook her head and—hold it.
Quickly, Cloud Buster examined herself. Azure hooves, check. Rainbow mane, check. Lady parts… check. Tiny, girlish body, check. Yet…
Standing clear as day in her mind’s eye were her memories as Cloud Buster. For a few moments, it was as if she wore a body that was far too small, her movements quick and twitchy instead of ponderous as she tried to turn herself around and tripped, falling with a puff on the damp grass below. Shutting her eyes, she lay there until she could feel her limbs again.
More than just the broad swath of her life greeted her; each iteration altered by Them slotted into its proper place; Scootaloo having a coat just like his; a dimly remembered third sibling who had been taken away when he was just a colt; the shifting locations of his childhood home. It all stood as a poignant reminder that the life he’d been taken from had itself been taken for a ride. Change after change after change riddled and made a maddening mess of his past.
Exhaling, she—Rainbow Dash—sighed. Cloud Buster isn’t gone after all. He’s right here with me. Mingled together with this new Rainbow Dash mare who was all ready to start a life of her own. And here I was, hoping for a clean break. I guess nothing about this whole “purpose” thing is cut-and-dried.
Rainbow breathed in and out. Perhaps it was merely the aftereffects of experiencing oblivion, but each inhalation filled her lungs with fresh, verdant air. The scent of grass and flowers tickled her nose, and she lifted her head to find herself in the greenest field she had ever laid eyes upon. It wasn’t that it was merely green, with a thick carpet of grains waving nearly over her head as she stood, but it seemed so very real—real in a manner Rainbow Dash found it was hard to put a hoof on.
The Deep Dream had felt real. It tricked her, but that did not make it seem any less authentic. A grassy knoll outside the waking Ponyville certainly possessed enough reality for her to sit on it, to sink into the loamy earth and lounge under the branches of a shady tree.
Here, however, Rainbow had to sit back and gape. Have I been asleep all this time? Was it only a really, really long nightmare that I’m just waking up from?
Turning in a slow circle, she frowned. Three pearly white pillars thrust themselves out of the ground above a pit that gaped into eternity, a mirror to that which she had entered, but the land was not the interior of anything, as far as she could tell. Waves of golden pasture rolled into the distance, marbled with seas of flowers. The gentle breeze pulled up clouds of petals that swam across the fields like colorful mist. Trees dotted the plain, growing thicker as her gaze swept higher, the land rising with them. Soon they became a dense forest, and that forest climbed up hills and rested alongside rivers in a living carpet, all of them converging on a single titanic mountain. It at once defied and defined the landscape—a spike of unreal stature, yet it seemed only appropriate, as if the world could not exist without her.
Rainbow Dash’s neck craned up. Golden light crowned the peak, piercing the clouds with shafts of sunlight. The clouds wreathed and obscured it, turning about the peak in a slow, leisurely circle.
For some reason, it all seemed so desperately familiar.
Like I’ve woken up here before. I might have just… put my head down right here and slept…
Shaking her head, Rainbow Dash leapt into the air and flew. She kept her flight low and steady, not hugging the ground but still coasting near it. She did not know what might live here beyond plants and did not want to find herself surprised with only empty air to hide in.
If anything, the serene beauty was turning out to be a greater danger than any imaginary threats she could conjure up. Her gaze, following the course of a slow river that glittered sedately, wandered and she dipped. Her hooves drew through a bed of flowers and she watched as their buds danced around her. Rainbow grit her teeth and pushed on, flying higher.
“Damn it, what is with this place?” Rainbow glared down at the pristine environment, but it was hard to maintain any sense of hatred. She knew the Entelecheia were waiting for her, somewhere, but all sense of urgency bled from her.
The strange certainty that some part of her had been here before only deepened as the trees came into view around her. The varieties were none that she recognized, but then botany had been a strength neither Cloud Buster nor Rainbow Dash possessed. The light diminished in the depths of the forest, yet still an ethereal luminance guided her towards the distant mountain.
A shadow moved through the trees. Immediately, Rainbow ground to a midair halt and turned around. Gliding high, she found herself frowning down at a pool, its surface recently disturbed. A suggestion of a four-legged figure lifted a head in the mist, then walked behind a tree. Gritting her teeth, Rainbow dove and swooped around it—only to find herself alone once more. A cursory examination of the forest floor revealed a single cloven hoofprint embedded into the thick loam.
“Hey!” Rainbow cupped her hooves near her mouth. “You out there! I’m not going to hurt you! Well, unless you’re really a monster in which case that may not be the case!”
There was no answer, but for another flicker of shadow. Rainbow growled and gave chase, darting from tree-to-tree in a streak of light. The figure kept ahead of her despite moving at what must have been the most leisurely gait Rainbow had ever seen, gliding from one place to another as if it were teleporting.
“Ugh! Fine!” Rainbow snapped. “Be that way! I’m going to the mountain to finish this stupid quest. You think I enjoy just flying around to one spot after another, letting people talk down to me about how much I don’t know? I’m trying to save a whole universe or something here!”
“Then,” a male’s voice said, “perhaps you ought to go about that.”
The shadow walked closer, resolving into a figure that was not unlike the strange unicorns Rainbow Dash had met in the world preceding hers. At this point, Rainbow Dash had seen enough strange things that the sight did not shock or alarm her, but something about the stallion set her back. It’s that stupid sense of familiarity again…
He was tall, but then Celestia was tall. Rather than a simple horn, his forehead pressed out into a curled, bony mass that seemed more an extension of his skull than anything. His coat shone with a gentle radiance not unlike a star, which Rainbow had at first assumed to be a quality of reflection but on closer inspection realized it emanated directly from the unicorn, as if part of him was shining through his skin.
Wary of yet another blast of expository knowledge, Rainbow landed and tilted her head at the stallion. “You, uh… haven’t come to tell me that you predate all intelligent life in the world or something, have you?”
“Would it matter?” he asked as he rolled his shoulders in a shrug. His mouth did not open, but his meaning pressed itself into her mind regardless. “Had I need of idle conversation I would have left this place long ago, as you did.”
“I…” Rainbow asked and frowned. “I’ve been here before? Also, we are having idle conversation.”
“‘Need’ and ‘want’ are not quite the same thing.” The stallion tossed his mane and went to stand atop a low hill overlooking a stream. “And yes, you have been here—or perhaps I might say that you are a part of one who has.”
Rainbow waved her hoof in a circle. “All of us connected, all of us a piece of one another?”
“And you say all you did was journey.” The telepathic voice chuckled. “Flitted about and listened to others talking.”
“I’m still doing that, but… well, I did learn a lot.”
“Is that not the point of journeys?” he asked. “If all one did was wander about to accomplish some basic task, it would be terribly boring.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Says the unicorn-thing prancing around in the enchanted forest.”
“If one is sufficiently patient, enlightenment can be found in many ways.”
“Is that what it’s called when you glow—”
“No.”
Rainbow shook her head. “Well, it was—uh… nice meeting you, but I wasn’t kidding when I said I needed to get to that mountain. I have to face these things called the—” Rainbow paused “—Entelecheia? There we go. The Entelecheia. They’re tearing my world apart and I need to stop them.”
“I know.” The stallion raised a hoof and gazed down at Rainbow Dash. “A moment, if you would. You are not interested in—nor do I suspect you need—someone to talk down to you, but perhaps a mote of advice would not be unwelcome?”
Pausing in the midst of leaping back into the air, Rainbow Dash looked back at him.
“You are not the first and I suspect you will not be the last to attempt this journey. You have learned much, Rainbow Dash, and fought hard to come all this way.” He walked down towards the stream. “You have taken upon yourself the burden of an entire existence, filled with beings who you barely know and yet you are noble enough to risk yourself for.”
Running a hoof along her mane, Rainbow sighed. “If you’re asking me if I’m ready to do this, I am. Other people and myself have already asked that question—quite a lot, actually.”
He shook his head. “On the contrary. It is a concern for your fellow beings that I find commendable.” Gazing down at the stream, he gestured her over. “My fear is that all of your confidence and desire will not be sufficient to carry you through to the end of your goal. Look to the mountain—already the Entelecheia gather their last possible line of defense.”
Rainbow frowned up, looking through the trees at the light-crowned peak. The clouds were turning faster now, streaks of grey and black staining their golden radiance.
“It doesn’t really matter how hard it is, does it? I can’t turn around. I can’t go back to living under them.” Rainbow stared back down at the ground. “Everyone is counting on me.”
“Indeed.” He nodded. “Which leads me to my advice—instead of courting failure, why not do what you can to help them from here?”
Blinking up at him, Rainbow’s frown deepened. “How?”
Touching the nearly still surface of the stream, he stirred it, and a vision of Ponyville appeared therein. Long shadows cast themselves upon the shattered ruins of the library, restoring it piecemeal. Rainbow winced, remembering how the Entelecheia had come down on it like a hurricane, shredding everything in Their wake.
“Be at ease, your friend is safe. Look—” He gestured again, and Twilight Sparkle pushed open the front door, heedless of the reconstruction effort behind her.
“Wait…” Rainbow asked slowly. “Did you do that? You aren’t one of… of Them are you?”
“Hardly.” The stallion snorted. “Another question for you, Rainbow Dash—what do you see around you here?”
Rainbow glanced around. “A forest.” At the expectant silence that followed, Rainbow frowned. “But… why is there a forest here? Why a mountain, for that matter? I’m somewhere beyond things, aren’t I?”
She didn’t need the stallion’s nod—as soon as she said it, she knew it was true. “Is this a trick, then?” she asked. “Another place like the Deeper Dream?”
“No.” He lifted his gaze and filled his nostrils. “This is reality. Where you come from? Where you were born and raised? That is the dream.”
“But… that…” Rainbow scraped her hoof on the forest floor. “Okay, so, I can imagine things here, can’t I? And they can become real? This forest is imagined.”
“It was conceived within an imagination, yes,” the stallion said.
“But I can’t do that back where I’m from. How can it be a dream, then?”
“You cannot? Do you think I am performing magic, as you conceive of it?” The stallion chuckled. “What is your world but a dream held within that of a greater mind by far? How did you think the Entelecheia accomplish their great feats, but by dreaming them into being?”
Rainbow laughed nervously. “Honestly, I hadn’t put much thought into it. They did things and it happened.”
“You have journeyed to the beginning and end of your world, the blank slate upon which all templates, all ideal forms are dormant. They are immanent within the mind of the dreamer, there to be pressed into service as her dream demands.”
“Wait, though.” Rainbow held up a hoof. “Does… what does that make us, then? Are we just… figments? Ideas in someone else’s head?”
“Again, you are mistaking the pale imaginings of your dreams and the consensus reality of the Deeper Dream with the world you came from. If you were all just objects, would it not be trivial to erase and rewrite you at a whim?” He poked her in the chest, making her stumble back in shock. “Are you, Rainbow Dash, merely an idea? No,” he said firmly, “you and all thinking things are parts of the dreamer, pieces of her own mind. It is the dreamer understanding herself.”
“Hawa,” Rainbow breathed. “That’s why the Deeper Dream led from a place she had visited down to the blank slate.”
He glanced up again at the darkening clouds. “Mm. Yes.”
“What happens if she awakens?” Rainbow frowned up at them as well. “What happens then?”
“Perhaps you might find out.” He eyed her. “Then again, perhaps not. So, with that in mind, I offer you my advice: do not challenge the mountain.” He waved his hoof over the river. “Lay back upon this stream. Allow it to carry you away and let its serene calm lull you into sleep. Slumber and dream a dream within the dream, one that your friends can migrate to. There, you can construct a place of safety for them, where they might go about their lives as they might wish. The Entelecheia cannot touch you.”
Rainbow stared up at him, then down at the water. Flowers floated along it lazily, their white petals open to the sky. It seemed to her as if they were dreaming themselves, each one containing a world of its own. Her limbs were already heavy with the tension she carried, and the weight on her doubled as she considered how far she had yet to go.
Damn it… he’s right. If what he says is true, and… and all I need to do is dream a place as real as home, then invite everyone in where they’ll be safe from the Entelecheia… isn’t that what I’ve been trying to do all this time? Close the Book, put an end to the Plan screwing everyone up. Her eyes shut, and she pictured Ponyville in her mind. It sprang to life, full of color and detail the likes of which she never could have imagined back beyond the moon gate—indeed, she knew without a doubt that she was looking upon Ponyville as it stood this very instant. Big Macintosh pulled his plow with a great big grin on his face, a giddy blush that signalled he remembered last night very well indeed. Shadows fell across Lyra and Thunderlane as they took Scootaloo out shopping in the market, their gazes softening as they watched their adoptive daughter race ahead of them. I could stop it all right now.
Rainbow Dash opened her eyes to watch the petals go by. Tentatively, she reached out a thought, touching them—lotus blossoms. The word sprang to her mind without any past experience. She could turn it around in her head, picking it apart down to its constituent atoms and beyond, right to the energies binding it together.
“You see?” the stallion asked softly. “Within you lies the seed of another world. You have merely to realize your potential.”
Rainbow turned her eyes up to the crowned mount. “But… what about her?”
“She will continue dreaming. New worlds, new ideas. It is the way of things.”
Rocking back and forth on her hooves, Rainbow stared at nothing in particular, her eyes now seeing past the trees to the possibilities that lay beyond. Her own world, operating under her own rules.
“More worlds, where more of this stuff takes place…” She perked her ears. “Wait… Even if I do as you say, wouldn’t my world suffer the same fate as hers?” She swept her hoof down at the stream. “It just keeps falling apart! And what about new people, or people who can’t or don’t want to come to mind? What about you, even?”
“What makes you think I am part of Hawa’s mind?” He lifted an eyebrow. “No matter, though. Yes, the things you say are concerns, but what did you expect to find, here?”
“Well, uh…”
“Kicking down the Door, pounding the Entelecheia to pulp, burning the Book, and then flying home triumphantly to live in peace and harmony forever?”
Rainbow Dash coughed and rubbed at the back of her head. “Well, I…” She sighed. “No. Maybe at first that’s how I envisioned it.” She sat down, lowering her face. “When Firefly first came to me, I thought it would be something like that. Just find the Door, bash it open, and make Them stop.”
“You’ve come a long way since children’s adventure stories, though, haven’t you?”
“I have. I know that Hawa tried to make a world safe and secure for everyone and all that happened is that it leapt off into the sun.” Rainbow shook her head. “I know the following attempt at putting a world together that would sustain itself led to Them having to fix things all the time.”
“So?” The stallion tilted his head. “This knowledge, this wisdom—what does it tell you to do?”
“So…” Rainbow got back to her hooves. She turned to face the mountain. “It’s telling me that I can’t stop journeying here. I need to go further. I need to answer all of the questions.”
“Your Element will not help you,” he said. “Friendship, harmony, loyalty, magic… all of these things are merely part of her dream. If you go to the peak, no narrative contrivance will save you.”
“It’s like I said at the beginning, isn’t it?” Rainbow smiled. “It doesn’t matter. I have to do it. If I don’t, who else will? You?”
“No, I think I’ve interfered enough. I believe this is something that must come from within, so to speak. Just remember—this journey is more about understanding than it is about conflict.” He gave Rainbow Dash a wry smile. “Do not say that I didn’t warn you, however.”
“Heh.” Rainbow smiled. “Thank you, anyway.” Turning her attention on the mountain, Rainbow frowned, trying to imagine herself there.
“If it were that easy, I would simply have told you to do that from the start,” the stallion chided.
Rainbow grumbled. “Back to the old wingpower, then. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye, and good luck,” the stallion said, as he watched her take off. “I almost wish you had accepted. It is not so much your failure that troubles me, as what your success might entail.”
* * *
The mountain loomed ahead. It now dominated the sky. Its sheer cliffs scraped at low-hanging clouds with claws of red, white, and black. Far above, the golden light at the crown became obscured as the roiling storm intensified. Black and angry clouds were now shot through with flashes of lightning. Rainbow Dash grit her teeth and angled her flight upwards, hooves straining for the sunlight.
From above, the thunder boomed in challenge.
“Shout all you want, I’m not leaving!” Rainbow screamed back.
Lightning lashed down at her and she rolled. It sizzled the air and left a blinding streak across her vision. The shockwave jolted her, but she pushed her wings harder. Another flash of lightning skittered across the rock face, sending molten chunks flying into the air. Rainbow ignored their sting and redoubled her efforts.
The clouds split open, and Rainbow wondered for a moment if They meant to wash her away in a torrent. Rather than rain, however, something shiny fell. Dodging, Rainbow narrowly avoided being cleaved in two by an enormous sword. It spun about below, accelerating to catch up to her. She rolled again, and stared up at it as a lightning bolt struck the tip, wreathing the blade in white flame.
Not a conflict my blue butt!
“Rainbow Dash!” a voice boomed from the heavens. “You cannot be permitted to mount the seat of creation! All the world shall be unmade! Your quest will fail, you and all you know will be unraveled!”
“That’s what you want me to think, isn’t it? You Entelecheia have sure done a fine job of keeping the place up, haven’t they?” Rainbow snarled and shot upwards again. “I’m tired of the lies, I’m tired of bowing down to an authority I can’t understand!”
“To know and understand is to destroy all that is! Turn back—or we shall destroy you.”
“Never! Everypony and everyone back there needs me to save them, and I’m not going to leave them hanging!”
“It is known to you that your Element is a lie! Loyalty is merely a bauble, a toy used to contain the world’s energies. It means nothing here!”
The sword flashed and spun at her, faster and faster. Lightning crashed about them. Rainbow Dash was fast, a streak of light in the air—in this place, she felt stronger and more in control than ever, jinking and weaving as quick as thought.
“I don’t care! I don’t need your Elements! Even if magic is just a joke, that doesn’t mean the love I have for them is fake!” She kicked out, sending the blade spinning, though the flames stung her hoof. “Bring it on! I’m coming for you, even if it’s the last thing I do!”
There was a pause, and then the heavens answered. “So be it.”
The flaming sword flashed. Rainbow spin, kicked, whirled. She put on speed and sudden brakes. The flaming sword, however, turned every which way. It couldn’t land a true strike, but it grazed her, burned her, sliced off bits of skin and hair, bleeding her out drop-by-drop. Still, Rainbow Dash flew on, screaming in rage.
Just as she thought she might push through, the sky opened up again. Lightning lashed the mountainside, first one, then ten, then hundreds of bolts. Great stone figures spread wings and launched for her, raining down like hailstones. Spears, knives, and arrows hissed through the air like rain, and Rainbow Dash screamed as a shaft embedded itself into her back. More pelted her, slicing apart her skin and digging into her bones. Her wings were torn and tattered, her legs were lacerated, her body ran red. Dimly, with blood in her eyes, she became aware of one of the stone figures leveling its great arm at her, a faceless mass of rock.
The blow knocked her clean out of the sky.
Down, down she plummeted, her body broken.
Tumbling, twisting, she watched as the earth rose to meet her. It was so peaceful. Silent. The only thing she could hear was her own labored breath as her lungs filled.
No… no…
Spreading her wings, Rainbow howled as the air tore into them, wounded muscle and tissue screaming as blue feathers were ripped off of. Somehow, she managed to flap enough, to push against enough air, that when she struck the hard white surface of a stone shelf below she was not rendered into paste. Her screams echoed over the mountain, joining the thunder as her legs snapped.
Rainbow turned her eyes up. She saw the storm overhead and sobbed, hauling herself back towards the slope. It was one painful leg at a time, fighting against the agony as a spear tip scraped the ground through her.
The flaming sword drifted to a halt in front of her.
“But speak the word, Rainbow Dash. We will carry you to the portal and free you from this torment, from this terrible burden that afflicts you,” the voice pleaded. “You can return to your life, your loved ones. It need not end here.”
In her mind, she saw Ponyville. Seeming to sense something amiss, the ponies she saw frowned, lifting their hooves and glancing around. She sank her thoughts deeper, and the eyes of the Lost looked back at her, their pale, ghostly faces uncertain. She sank further still, and gazed among the still cylinders holding the memories of a dead race. Her mind encompassed all of them at once, spreading to touch every inch. It bled together, a kaleidoscopic motley that encompassed every color of the rainbow and beyond.
Rainbow Dash lifted her head.
“It will never end,” she croaked. Spitting red saliva, she stared back at the clouds. “As long as… there’s still people… out there… who need help, there will… there will be an answer. Someone… will win.”
In answer, the flaming sword rose. It spun and flashed towards her. Rainbow Dash closed her eyes.
A crash of steel on steel jolted them open again. An engine roared, and Rainbow stared as Crimson Charger caught the sword on her shoulder. The blade cut deep, but the mechanical pony snarled and surged, slamming the weapon against the ground and snapping it in half with a single blow.
“What,” Rainbow croaked. She wasn’t sure if she was asking a question or simply debating her own sanity. Perhaps I’m dead already. Maybe you just get recycled into another, crazier dream when you die.
Crimson Charger turned and covered Rainbow Dash as weapons rained around them. Weapons shattered and clanged all around them, banging off her armored backside. The enormous stone statue that had smacked Rainbow out of the sky descended towards the two of them, and Rainbow feebly tried to raise a warning.
Before she could do anything, though, a bolt of blue light struck the rock creature center mass and blew it apart in a spectacular display of fireworks. “Crimson Charger!” the Oracle’s voice rang out. Her hooves clipped sharply on the ground beside us as she stepped into view, the tip of her horn glowing like a tiny sun. “Fetch a healing pod, I have her now.”
Crimson Charger raced off, and the Oracle spread her legs just in time to catch a lightning bolt out of the sky, turning it and frying another animated statue. Fire descended from above, but she coolly shielded the pair of them in a bubble of force that shed the flaming stones like so much rain.
Rainbow wobbled her head around, her labored breathing intensified. “What.”
The Oracle flicked her leonine tail with a swish, smirking. “Surprised to see us?”
Rainbow coughed blood. “I didn’t… I… call...”
Turning another beam on a lumbering creature, the Oracle managed to cut it in half, but the other half stumbled towards them anyway, threatening to crush the shield.
“That’s right. I did!” A pink streak of light swooped in, and Firefly delivered a powerful kick that knocked the shape aside. “Boom, baby!”
She landed beside Rainbow Dash, her wings spread and a victorious grin plastered on her face. It slipped a bit as she saw Rainbow’s bloodied state. “Oh, wow. Arrived just in time, I see.”
“How…?”
Firefly waved a hoof at her. “Shush, you just hold on; don’t push yourself.”
A golden-capped hoof planted on the ground beside her, a tall pony rising above her. She had hair like a pink sunset waving in its own breeze, and her horn shone with the light of the sun. “Hello, Mother,” she said in a heavy voice.
“Daughters,” the Oracle said quietly, as a third pony joined them, with midnight coat and a starry mane. Her face fell as she looked between them. “My… how you've grown.” She reached up to rub at her face. “After a few thousand years I should have thought of something more pithy to say.”
“There will be time for words later, Mother,” Luna said. She pressed her cheek up against the Oracle’s and they shared a quiet moment, before the crash of stones landing around them drew their attention. “For now, we seem to have been drawn into some sort of confrontations.”
They set themselves in a triangle about Rainbow Dash and Firefly and cast their magic into the sky.
Rainbow’s head throbbed, and not for lack of bread. “Princess… es… okay, gonna… just lay my head down now… can finish dying in peace…”
“Not if we can help it,” Firefly said sternly. “Come on, boys—move her, and let’s be careful.”
Rainbow felt herself being lifted, and dimly perceived that black-robed, iron-masked ponies were carefully sliding her onto a pallet, they turned her, and she saw an entire gleaming army arrayed behind her.
The undead queen rode a golden throne hauled by a dozen of her cold servants, a shepherd's crook grasped in one hoof as she stared defiance up at the mountain. “Fire!” she shouted, waving her crook, and all around her engines of war leapt to life, flinging black jars that erupted into violent flames, smashing apart stones. Bronze-armored ponies with sand-colored coats cheered before loading new rounds, cranking their catapults back.
It was chaos. Madness, even. There were colorful pegasi flying in among the lightning bolts, shoving clouds into place which caught the bolts and shielded the forces down below. Rows of robots like Crimson Charger lined up, firing their cannons and filling the sky. Stone birds and dragons swooped down to try and crush the multicultural army only to be torn apart.
Welp, that’s it. I’ve died and gone to that special place in the sky for good little ponies.
The cold servants carried her to the center of the battle lines, where Crimson Charger rode back at full tilt, carrying a brace of pods on her back. She set one down and ran a cable between her and it, attaching herself to it and pressing buttons with her little arms until it turned on. “Take the weapons out of her. Gently! She’s lost a lot of blood as it is!”
The cold servants silently complied, and Rainbow found herself slid into the healing pod as blackness crept up into her vision.
“Nice… knowin’ ya…” She lolled her head over to Firefly, who hovered beside the pod with a worried expression. The other mare had never seemed so utterly real before, as if Rainbow could reach out and touch her. “This is a… beautiful… hallucination. Gonna… hit me with a fryin’... pan…?”
“Oh, Dashie,” she said, putting a hoof on the glass. “This isn’t a hallucination, you silly mare. I’d hit you if it wouldn’t kill you.”
Red light filled her gaze, and then a mask cinched itself around her mouth. With an inflating hiss, a foam filled her vision and encased her body. Vaguely, Rainbow was aware of being prodded and poked. Distant rumbles of thunder echoed through the space, but she floated as if on a cloud. Here… comes the end… any… second now…
I mean… come on, if I’m going to die, at least make it interesting. None of this floaty stuff. Are you supposed to feel better before you die? Because this is strangely kinda nice.
The fog slowly cleared from her head.
Uhm…
Distorted voices echoed in from outside. “Come on, Twilight… can investigate it later…”
“Oh, oh, I wanna have a ride in one!”
“Pinkie! None of us want to see you get injured, too.”
“Dears, please. Give Rainbow some space! It looks awfully tight in that pod.”
“It just looks so interesting. I’ve never seen technology this advanced, and if it works as advertised…”
The foam deflated, covering Rainbow Dash in a sticky sap that was quickly washed away by nozzles spraying warm water. Outside the pod’s window, she saw Crimson Charger watching over her, while five mares pressed their faces to the glass.
“Okay,” Crimson said. “I’m opening it, now. Be careful, she’s stable, but it’ll take her body a moment to recover from the shock.”
The others backed up, and Rainbow gave a few experimental breaths as the pod lifted. There was a tenderness pretty much everywhere about her, but nothing felt like it was going to fall apart. Carefully, she craned herself up.
“Okay, uhm… Dash?” Twilight asked, looking at her with a puzzled frown. “Or… Cloud Buster, or… whoever. What exactly is going on?”
“Long story,” Rainbow wheezed, then coughed. She had to take a moment to cough up collected gunk in her throat before she could speak again, and swivelled her head around to Firefly, who stood a little off to the side, a faintly awkward distance from her friends. “You… what the hay is going on? Why is my death being interrupted by all this insanity?”
Firefly scuffed her hoof, glancing around as if she were a filly with her hoof caught in the cookie jar. “Well, yeah, funny thing, this. You remember how I kind of lived in your head?”
“Vividly.” Rainbow rubbed her forehead.
“That strange stallion you met, I was in your mind as before, listening, and he said that we, all of us, are dreams ourselves, but real in our own way.” She waved her hoof around. “That you could imagine something and it would sort of impinge upon this place. I did that, when you were falling. When your mind reached out to everyone you’d met, I willed myself to them, and showed them that you were in trouble. They all willed themselves to join you and we kind of… all dreamed ourselves here.” She beamed. “Everything is connected, every one of us.”
Rainbow’s mouth worked for a moment. “That’s… that’s… absolutely ridiculous!”
“It kind of is,” Twilight agreed. “That’s really contrived, Firefly. I mean, only really cheap novels use something so convoluted to pull out a...” She paused and stared at Firefly. “Wait… F-Firefly? You… I… I f-forgot you! How could I forget you?”
Firefly reached over and tugged Twilight into a hug. “I missed you. All of you, I really did. And, look…” She gestured at Rainbow. “Dash here is the key. When she entered here, she became a dreamer whose thoughts were just as real as the Ponyville we left behind. That means that I was real again, and because I was in her mind I was able to feed her ideas, and so when I hijacked her imagination and came to you all and connected you to her—”
“Stop, stop!” Rainbow waved her hooves. “Enough, please, I beg you. I have had way, way too much explaining done to me as it is. We can go over this in full if we survive.” She looked around the others, her eyes softening. “However it happened, thank you all. I…” She glanced up at the battle raging all around them. “I know it’s hard to accept right now, but we’re in a battle to reach the center of something that stretches back, way back before any of us were born. It’s for the sake of all of our lives.”
“Uhm…” Fluttershy stepped forward. “Is that why I feel like I should be an earth pony who was… well, uhm… I mean… dating you, Cloud Bus—I mean, Rainbow?”
Rainbow groaned. “Oh, please don’t remind me that I’ll need to explain all of this to Big Macintosh later.” She nodded. “Yes. I guess you’re all, uhm… I don’t know, fully realized now? I got all of my lost memories when I came here, too.”
Pinkie Pie bounced on all fours, grinning more broadly than ever. “So, like, anything I imagine can come here?”
Firefly shook her head. “I’m not sure it’s that simple. I mean, I had to work with people that already existed in some—”
Pinkie Pie sprang into the air, sprouted a full set of pink wings, and flew off. She whipped a cannon out of thin air and raced off to join the battle in the skies, giggling all the way.
Firefly worked her jaw for a moment before shrugging. “Well. Okay. Have it your way then.” She turned to the others. “Come on, then, let’s clear the way for Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow slid out of the pod. She shot a grateful look to Crimson Charger, who was disconnecting herself. “Are you okay?”
“Me?” Crimson looked to her rent shoulder, where wires and cables were sticking out. “Oh, it’s fine. Minor damage. I don’t get hurt the same way.”
“Thanks for the save.”
“Glad to provide it. Just remember your promise, Rainbow Dash.”
“Definitely.” Rainbow frowned and turned back towards Firefly. “Wait, me? What about the rest of you? Now that we all know the truth, any one of us can go for the peak, can’t we?”
“No one knows the full story like we do, Rainbow.” Firefly smiled. “No one else has fought nearly as hard. We’re the only ones who have gone to the beginning and the end and made it here. If it weren’t for us, this would be over—and of the two of us, you have the best chance of breaking through.”
“Me?” Rainbow touched her chest, frowning up at the sky. Fireworks burst, forcing her to shield her eyes.
“We can’t break through this. Look—” Firefly pointed a hoof upwards, where the very mountain itself boiled with new animated creatures, raining down in a torrent, as fire and lightning cascaded. “—we’re good, but They’re better. The Entelecheia are limited here, but they still have more than enough ability to dream up new weapons. Even if we can match them, keep things going, it’s going to be a stalemate at best. Somepony needs to get through that.” She turned her face to Rainbow Dash. “Much as I hate to admit it, you’re a better flier than I am. They made you to be that way.” She glanced up at the sky, frowning. “Somehow, I think it was always meant to come down to you. I’ve suffered too long—I’m bitter. Angry. If I went up there, I don’t know what I might do, but I’m not sure I have what it takes to look at this objectively anymore.”
“I can’t get through that, though. I’ve tried.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. Her spirits flagged as she watched the brave beings fighting on her behalf. “I…”
“You can, Rainbow. There’s something you can do that nopony else can,” Firefly said and turned Rainbow’s head to face hers. “The sonic rainboom. You were built for that. I call that a beautiful irony, throwing Their creation right back into Their faces.”
“I’ve never actually performed that!”
“You can do it, though.”
“I… I mean, I have the idea, I…” Rainbow frowned around. “This isn’t the time to screw up.”
“Rainbow—”
“No,” Rainbow said, putting a hoof to Firefly’s mouth. “Hold on. I’m thinking.”
Firefly’s right. If I can get up to a sonic rainboom I can clear right through… but I’ve never even tried one, all I know is that I’m capable of it. So what I need is…
“Twilight!” Rainbow called, racing over.
Pausing in the middle of flying up to join the pegasi, Twilight glanced down at her. Forgetting for a moment that she needed to beat her wings to remain aloft, she fell with a little yelp. “Ow.” She rubbed her rear. “What is it?”
“I need you to make a portal spell.” Rainbow pointed up. “Aim it as high as you can. Can you make it so that the orientation of the portal down here is different from the one above? So that, while I’m going down here, I will come out the other side going up?”
Twilight blanched, but nodded. “Yeah, I can do that. I mean, I had to with the whole moon portal in the first place.”
“Great! Do that. I need some speed.” Rainbow gave Firefly a glance. “You take care of things down here, okay?”
“Hey.” Firefly rubbed a hoof against her chest. “I kind of already was, if you hadn’t noticed. You may have the better wings, Rainbow, but you’re not very perceptive.”
Rolling her eyes, Rainbow trotted off. She tested her wings, making sure they were intact after the beating they had received. She checked them as she went—there were a few feathers missing, but she hoped it would not be a critical loss. Some of those were feathers she would have had to remove in preening, but there were a couple primaries missings he definitely would have liked to have in this next insane stunt.
Her hoofsteps slowed as she saw some of the ground-bound ponies of Ponyville aiding the formerly-undead queen’s soldiers under the shade of the nearby trees, just a short distance down the mountain. Earth ponies poured ingredients into jars and hauled them to waiting carts, while unicorns shielded them, raising a patchwork quilt of magic that bounced off the flaming rocks and weapons from above. Lyra waved at her, lifting a golden half-sphere to shelter her advance.
“Thanks, I…” Rainbow called to her, her voice trailing off as she spotted another pony. Huge and fire red, he carried a half-dozen jars as large as he was on a cart hitched to his yoke. The dusty-coated warriors accepted them, relieving Big Macintosh of his burden, while Apple Bloom raced over and passed a barrel of water up. He punched a hole in the top and drank it straight down, splashing across his side and the earth.
Their eyes met when he lowered the drink. For a few moments, it was almost as if there was no battle—the crash and thunder faded away, leaving only the deceptive serenity of the forest around them.
It was Big Macintosh who broke the silence. “Saw you fallin’. All of us did.”
Rainbow rubbed her foreleg, looking towards his hooves. “Yeah. I could have planned that better.”
“I…” Big Macintosh frowned. He stepped forward and looked down at her. “I don’t pretend to understand what’s goin’ on. It’s all so… crazy. Like we’ve all been different ponies before, all of us, and now we’re fightin’ here for you.”
“You guys…” Rainbow said. She vacillated, turning her head from side to side and refusing to look directly at him. She tried to speak a few times, but her heart sped up and her breathing tightened. He knows, he knows he knows. Oh, hey, I know you remember me as a stallion and we kind of did some things together when I was a mare, is it okay if I vomit in humiliation instead of talking to you? “I—”
“All I know is, you’re fightin’ somethin’ that needs to be stopped,” he said in that slow, unstoppable manner of his. “That’s what Firefly said when she came, hot on the heels of us seein’ you fall.” He glanced up at the mountain, though Rainbow Dash couldn’t bear to look upon his face and see the expression writ there. “That we all needed to drop everything we were doin’ and come help you, right now, or else nothin’ in the world would have meanin’ anymore.”
Rainbow reddened and stared now at the dirt in front of her hooves. “I… Thank you. I don’t… I wouldn’t have made it. I’m glad you… that you agreed to help Firefly. That you came.”
“Course, I didn’t do it for her.”
Rainbow’s ear twitched. Her breath caught.
“I just got one question.” A hoof touched her chin, and he lifted her gaze towards his. Her heart beat like a caged bird, struggling to free itself from her chest and fly up into her throat. “Didja know, before last night, who you were?”
Rainbow squeezed her eyes shut and nodded slightly.
Big Macintosh said nothing. Instead, powerful legs swept her up and held her close against him. Rainbow blinked, looking up at his face.
“Big Mac…” she breathed. Her legs went around his neck while her eyes searched his face.
“I won’t say it ain’ a little strange,” he said, “but, well… do you plan on stayin’ Rainbow Dash?”
A smile crossed her features, and she put her hooves on his chest. The gentle strength in his limbs encircled her, made her feel as if she belonged nowhere else. “I had that in mind, if I could. Big Mac… I… I don’t know what’s going to happen after this. I don’t know if there’s going to be a Sweet Apple Acres to go back to.” She coughed delicately. “Heck, I don’t know if there’s going to be a world to go back to if I succeed here.”
“Don’t matter.” He shook his head. “You pick the spot, Rainbow Dash. I’ll look for you there.”
“Thank you.” Rainbow lifted her face to meet his, and they nuzzled. “I’ll come back, I promise… if it’s possible for me to come back.”
He nodded, and she tucked her head under his and held him for a time. Doubtless, he felt no more words were needed.
Eventually, they released one another. Rainbow Dash shared one last look of understanding with her stallion and trotted off.
Catching her breath, Rainbow Dash ran back up the hill. Her wings were standing up fairly well, and she was no longer sore—whatever miraculous technology the predecessors of the pony race had at their disposal certainly worked. Does it work well enough for me to do something I’ve never seriously dreamed of attempting, though?
Creaking up the hill in front of her was a massive monstrosity, a enormous conglomeration of speakerphones, subwoofers, and other sound equipment bolted together with huge braces and propelled by a pair of large, lumbering robots on wheels.
“Are you positively sure this will work?” a stallion asked. Rainbow recognized him at once as the pre-Equestrian unicorn stallion she had met among the brain jars. The tip of his horn glowed as he adjusted what looked like a pair of sophisticated generators.
“Darned right it will!” Vinyl Scratch said. She stood atop the mass, her horn glowing to adjust dials across an enormous instrument panel. “Hey, squirt, you’ve got the baffles set, right? I don’t want this baby blowing apart halfway through.”
A blond unicorn filly giggled, looking just as energetic as she had in the Deeper Dream. “Ready and waiting!” She started bouncing on her heels, her leonine tail flicking back and forth. “Oh, this is going to be so awesome!”
“Clear the airways!” Vinyl shouted into a megaphone.
Immediately, pegasi started diving away in all directions. Pinkie Pie was the last of them, scattering fireworks behind her like confetti to erupt into colorful blossoms.
The posh unicorn looked askance at the readings. “Ladies, I find myself having second thoughts. These are very powerful fusion reactors and I’m not sure these speakers are rated for—”
“Do it, do it, do it do it do it!” the filly shouted, slamming the power lever to “On.”
The generators shook violently, and Rainbow shook her head, leaping into the air as a low hum filled the air. She beat her wings, carrying her into the waiting cloud of pegasi.
Mosh Pit poked his head up from the wagon carrying the speakers, looking at Vinyl. “The braces are all set, it’s holding together for now, Vinyl. Uhm… before this goes off, can I say that I love you?”
Vinyl considered him for a moment, tapping her hoof against the top of her monstrosity. “Well, you are kind of cute, and aren’t too bad in the sack. If we make it through this alive, pal, we can talk all you like.” Vinyl flipped her sunglasses down. A guitar levitated in front of her, while the filly lifted heavy corrugated shields around the speakers. It had the look of an enormous cannon, aimed straight up the mountainside.
Vinyl tapped the microphone once with a nearly deafening click. Then, with a wide grin and a triumphant pose, she strummed a pick through the guitar.
A rippling wave of devastation blossomed out, shivering the air as it passed. The trailing edge of the sound wave was enough to set Rainbow’s teeth to chattering, and Cloudchaser and Flitter flew to either side of her to keep her from losing her balance. The blast scattered the incoming attacks like so much dust in the wind, and carried up, higher, clearing a column of air nearly up to the peak before it dispersed. A faint shimmering point indicated the portal had been set, and Rainbow looked down to see the purple ring gaping at her. It was like all of those pits she had gone into before—a portal that would take her to a new world. “That’s as good an opening as any,” she muttered.
Gazing down, she saw Scootaloo with her friends, bouncing and cheering. “That’s my big brother! I mean… sister! I mean whatever!”
“Go Rainbow-Buster-Dash!” Sweetie Belle cried.
Big Macintosh lifted a hoof to her, silent and dependable as ever.
Lyra lowered the golden magic shield she had been using to smile. Thunderlane saluted from a nearby cloud. Rarity and Applejack waved her on. Fluttershy whooped. Berry Punch stamped her hooves. Cadance and Shining Armor lifted their gaze from where their magic entwined to watch her. Crimson Charger reared up on her hind tires. Even the undead queen, the Oracle, and the Princesses watched her with silent anticipation.
Firefly turned her face up, beaming. “Go, Rainbow Dash.”
Rainbow looked up. A golden ray of light peeked through the storm clouds, casting itself down on the army below. It all comes down to this, now. Just you and me. What is it that I still have left to understand? I suppose, like everything else about this whole crazy mess, I won’t know until I actually go there.
“I’m coming, Hawa. I’ve unraveled your whole world already, just by bringing everyone here with me.” Rainbow Dash spread her wings, allowing herself to tilt downwards. “Time to wake up.”
She snapped her wings and shot down. Rainbow light spun itself in a trail behind her, and she rocketed at the portal. From hundreds of feet in the air, she reached the portal within the span of a second and passed seamlessly through it to the other side, the air distorting in front of her.
Black shapes clustered, descending down on her with lidless gazes and gaping mouths.
Even with gravity reversed, she felt as if her power was limitless. She beat her wings harder, faster, one hoof extended to divert the air. It pierced the cone, and her lips pulled back from the force.
With one, final thrust, light exploded all around her, a thousand hues radiating out in a wave that blasted her up and out, smashing through the Entelecheia and carrying her into that single shaft of light. The rainbow ring spread behind her, a white lotus flower with a thousand multihued petals.
The light filled her, swallowed her up, and then everything disappeared.
* * * * * * *
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Dig down, down into the deepest dreams, down until you reach the bedrock of the mind. And when you can't go any further, turn around and climb, out of the hole and up the mountain and into the sky.
A single ray of golden light, on top of the mountain. The first ray of morning light against your eyelids through the window at dawn.
It's time to wake up, Rainbow Dash.
y'know the first think that popped into my head as i finished this chatper...
a Star Trek quote, of all things...
"You are the dreamer, . . . and the dream."
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3262351
Awesome comments, you guys are definitely hitting the right philosophical vibe!
I found a rather odd choice for playlist's choice of song to play when I started this chapter (Trust me there, long story) In deciding to play a very fitting song. Flynn Lives! Was its choice, and frick it wasn't certainly fitting as the story goes on. With how it went in the writing, I thank my benevolent cpu based overlord.
The march of memories moves yet ever on, of times held in golden standards. Fragments of a place that time has forgotten. Of the places elsewhen, and the people before, to stand before the last bastions of the waking world, and see, not for them, not for their friends, but that only her hope for a better world shall win a new day. And to pray, not for her, for she has brought them out of the darkness. No, to pray for that which has caused pain, worry, and harm, for the mercy to spare her foe she goes to meet, for such reckonings are never kind when one fights selflessly for her friends. May mercy be with them all.
This is turning into a mindscrew.
inb4 the story ends with Dash waking up.
3264679
Interesting.
3269138
Turning into? Hell, son, this was a mindscrew as early as Chapter 7, at the least! It may have been earlier!
3269198 Seeing two little poems written, something about it decided to try my hand at it, and its true, a hero fighting for friends and family, heavens and hells help you for going after them, for they will spare none.
Wow...that was pretty much pure madness.
Nice to see a little bit of self-aware tongue-in-cheek lampshading after all the heavy metaphysics. Definitely brought a smile to my face.
I don't think that Rainbow will fail in her confrontation with Hawa, but I do find myself wondering what will happen to the world afterwards. Will RD take over as the new dreamer? Will everyone remember the truth that was impressed into their minds on the Moon? Will things go back the way they were? Will ponies get to choose which versions of themselves to keep?
3272092
Stay tuned for the conclusion!
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Because I love to see you suffer!
Rainbow/Buster is really pretty shocked, she's also just gotten over being shredded into pieces. The battle isn't really her problem - her allies are there to pick her up and give her the push she needs.
Really? This is the final hurrah, for everyone except Rainbow Dash and Firefly. This is their climax.
Rainbow's is yet to come.
3272099 Is this gonna be, like, they finally think they have the masterminds cornered and that their world is a big artificial thing that giant robots pop up out of now and then, but then it turns out that it's really a dream by some girl who only really showed up halfway through the series and the ENTIRE story up to that point was a red herring and the main character is all like, "I'M REAL BECAUSE I BELIEVE I EXIST!" And then it ends..
Cuz that was totally "Big-O".
(Yes, I am still utterly pissed at that show's WTF ending.)
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It's actually a bit more complicated than that. I might refer you to Hindu Mythology.
3307086 I tried understanding Hindu mythology once...
3 years later I was finished with my psychiatric therapy.
It's why I prefer Japanese mythology! Tentacles are easier to figure out...
Late comment, but I really enjoyed the story so far. I'm glad the story is almost finished but a shame that I neglected posting comments. I wish I could say something about this chapter except the ending got me thinking abotu Wizard of Oz for some strange reason.
3339963
Follow the Yellow Brick Road...
Late comment I know, but I think I might be missing something. Why can't Firefly do what Rainbow Dash is supposed to do? She's been with Rainbow Dash as long as she has, and she knows more about the Entelecheia then Rainbow Dash does. Is Rainbow Dash supposed to be the one to do it because everyone else there is just a physical manifestation of her imagination?
How am I understanding this!
Now, lets do the rainbow!
I agree.
The sleeper must awaken!
This reminds me of some of the work by Michael Kirkbride, but also, (obviously) Hinduism, however, I swear that between this and the later chapters, the number of similarities with M.K.'s work is uncanny enough that I can't help but draw the conclusion that parts of this were inspired by his wonderful, crazy TES mythos.
To be fair, however, TES and M.Kirkbride are both heavily influenced by eastern religion, Buddhism, Thelema(-ism?), and (at least in the context that I am relating it to this work) heavily upon Hinduism, and I might just be ascribing similarity unjustly to his work because I'm more familiar with it than its original counterparts.
Firstly, hi. Sorry for taking four and a half years to pick this back up.
Secondly...
I haven't read this until now. How did I write the story of those lotuses?
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Eternal recurrence <3
WELL LOYALTY IS A REAL CONCEPT!